The $5.5 billion-asset Gesa CU becomes the fourth credit union to announce the acquisition of a Washington bank in 2024.

Earlier this year, Harborstone Credit Union said it will acquire Burlington-based SaviBank, Sound Credit Union said it plans to acquire Olympia-based Washington Business Bank and Renton-based First Financial Northwest Bank is being bought by Global Federal Credit Union.

All of Security State Bank’s 12 branches, which are located in Lewis, Thurston, Pacific and Grays Harbor counties, will be transferred to Gesa CU and become part of its branch system.Gesa currency operates 31 branches, loan centers and student-operated campus offices to serve its 290,000 members across Washington.

The Gesa deal is already the tenth purchase of a whole bank announced by a credit union in 2024. This year is on pace to shatter the previous high of 16 credit union-bank deals announced in 2022, although only 14 of those transactions ultimately closed.

The Independent Community Bankers of America’s President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey said in a press release that credit union-bank deals now account for roughly 25% of bank M&A in 2024.

“Congress must act on this dangerous trend, which expands the federal tax exemption for more than $2 trillion in credit union assets and displaces trusted providers of credit in local communities,” she said.

Only 11 credit union-bank tie ups were reached last year.

Gesa earned $10.8 million in the first quarter of 2024, a 21% decrease compared with a year earlier, according to call report data from the NCUA.

“In today’s ever-increasingly competitive banking environment, we feel that this transaction will provide uncountable benefits to these same communities, customers and employees that we have dedicated our long tenure to, and we thank them all for that trust that they have placed in us over all these years.”

 – Dwayne Aberle
President
Security State Bank